Guerilla Toss ‘Flood Dosed’ – EP REVIEW

This Guerrilla Toss article was written by Ben Malkin, a GIGsoup contributor

‘Flood Dosed’ sees Guerilla Toss show off just how weird and wonderful they are. The New York psychedelic/noise act return with slightly more polished production, and a bit more emphasis on simply being strange – with more nods to early psychedelic rock than ever before.

Carrying on a few tropes and trends from their previous releases, the opening song ‘Realistic Rabbit’ displays minimalistic-yet-odd vocals for the most part, intertwined with a colourful collection of synth layers – it’s all fairly abstract, and the structure of the song is quite exceptional – starting off with a bizarre slow burner-type aesthetic, before tumbling into the second section of the song which is just as bizarre. The second half is a lot more fast paced, and has some enjoyable lyrics to boot. “I’m still waiting, waiting to see, what is a fact or imaginary” is the ultimate line of each stanza, providing a bit of thoughtful intellect to fit with the weirder, curious lyrics about rabbits and butterflies.

‘Ritual in Light’ follows, which is just as wacky as the opening track, if not more. The song seems to be lacking any real drive though; there is no point of interest that should be keeping the listener hooked. This is disappointing because Guerilla Toss are definitely an interesting band, but this song just doesn’t have the same qualities as ‘Realistic Rabbit’. The third and final track ‘Polly’s Crystal’ fixes things – the song has an old school psych bassline but with a modern synth feel to it. Lots of quirky synthesizer sounds flutter around the bassline, creating a really nice, vintage sound. ‘Polly’s Crystal’ also contains a memorable hook section that is really nice on the ears, and soon jumps into an outro section that is probably the craziest moment on the EP, which of course, makes for a fitting conclusion.

‘Flood Dosed’ is a solid EP from Guerilla Toss; the attention to detail is wonderful and the band does a great job at being entertainingly trippy!